One day a little boy discovered a mother duck and her babies out swimming in the little lake in the back of the house. Excited, he asked his father to come look at the ducks, but his father was a busy man with lots of important things on his list that needed to be crossed off at the end of the day. He told the little boy that he would go with him the next day to see the mother duck and her babies.
The next day the little boy got up and went to the lake, but he couldn’t find the mama duck and the babies. He walked all the way around the lake, but they were gone. Sadly he went inside. His father was still so busy, though, that he had forgotten about his promise and he didn’t notice that his son was sad about the ducks. He worked hard and crossed off all the things on his list, all the things that were important.
We’ve all heard many variations of a story like that. We’ve all lived variations of that story. Sometimes we are the disappointed kid. Sometimes we are the overburdened adult concerned with business. Sometimes our conscience is pricked and we do better the next time. Others never see themselves.
This man’s wife showed him a video made by the Church featuring a busy dad with a very similar set of rolled drawings to the ones he had, with a chorus in the background softly asking “Are you giving the least to those that matter most?”
“I’m not like that,” he said.
His wife sighed. “If you are not like that, then why whenever you see this video do you feel the need to say you’re not like that?”
Planners vs. Wingers
In his excellent book Extremes, Robert Eaton describes two types of people.
“Wingers are creative, energetic, and spontaneous—but disdain such organizational trappings as outlines, agendas, and calendars—while Rigid Planners are so prepared and organized that they can become inflexible spiritual androids, marching forward as if programmed to ignore all unanticipated situations and stimili.”
I am a Winger who has tried to develop my planning abilities. I fly by the seat of my pants, but I plan enough to give myself some clearance. Whichever way we lean, we tend to believe that is the better way. If not checked, we Wingers would let the Martha, Martha, Marthas of the world do all the clean up at the ward party while we socialized, and considered our contribution to clean-up making off with one of the centerpieces, all the while judging them for being so dutiful all the time.
I did a presentation once with a wonderful Powerpoint slide show, but when I reached the end, I realized that in over planning, I missed the wonderful spontaneity and humor that makes my presentations enjoyable and may also have missed promptings from the spirit to take the presentation in a different direction. I have not totally shunned the slide show, but now it is only a part of my presentations, not the whole enchilada. The ideal is to find a happy medium between the two extremes. Before we can do that, we have to be willing to examine ourselves honestly, assessing our strengths and targeting the problem areas.
A Planner for the Rest of Us
I did not intend this article to be slanted, but it is a fact that the world caters to planners. Just go into a Franklin Covey store and you’ll see what I mean. At the beginning of each new year, when I shop for a planner in which to keep my life’s appointments, I contemplate the need for someone to design a planner for those of us who do not plan our life in half-hour increments. If anyone is listening, will someone please design a planner for the procrastinators, the creative people, the don’t-fence-me-in people. There needs to be a planner with “doodle pages” instead of a list of international area codes and lists of obscure holidays.
The planner I have now has a bunch of completely useless pages. I don’t need to know when “National Dental Health Week” is or what the average rainfall is in Helsinki. If I should ever plan to travel to Helsinki, I am quite sure I would not remember that there is a page in my planner that would come in handy in such planning. I don’t really care that there are 71,845 people in Yakima, Washington. Do the planner people think we will feel cheated if they give us a few completely blank pages on which to scribble ideas for a new novel or the recipe for Key Lime Pie? By the way, did you know that September 21 is “Respect for the Aged Day?” (I am registered at Target.)
Who are the people for whom they make these planners? There is a page at the end of every month for a recap of that month and on the opposite page one can detail a to-do list for the upcoming month. “So how did my April go? Were my April Fool’s jokes successful? Did I get a good deal on the bulbs for the garden?”
There are places for long-term goals so I can write in what I am planning to do in October of 2011. (I think I’ll clean out the vegetable crisper in the fridge.) Just give me two or three blank pages instead, please, so I don’t have to defile the intended purpose of the page and cross out the heading or write over top of the time slots. There is something beautiful and enticing about a blank page that inspires me to create. It isn’t that I don’t have goals, both long and short term, but they are not time specific. “A goal not written is only a wish.” That’s what the planner people would have us believe, but many of us just want to keep track of our next dentist appointment and back-to-school night. My long-term goals these days are things like “be a good grandmother.” I don’t have it broken down into action items, and I don’t have an end date on which I will evaluate whether or not I have reached that goal. I know that I am trying to add three cans of food a week to the food storage, and I don’t have to have that written down to know whether or not I am succeeding. I can just take a look in the pantry.
Putting the Pro in Procrastination
I am a procrastinator by nature, and I know it causes problems for me and for the people who love me. I entitled my personal history “Working to Deadline.” That reminds me that I want to have it finished before I die, which the website deathclock.com (Welcome to the Death Clock(TM), the Internet's friendly reminder that life is slipping away... second by second. Like the hourglass of the Net, the Death Clock will remind you just how short life is) tells me is December 31, 2033. Thanks. I’ll put that in my planner. Of course, healthclock.com tells me I can change that date if I just make a few adjustments in my BMI. So I decided to become 6’4”. That math comes out just about right now, and I’m good to go until February 15, 2054. The good news is that either way, it appears I die on a weekend.
I haven’t always been an anti-planner. After my husband died (deathclock doesn’t ask if you are planning to walk in front of a bus), thereby derailing all my plans for the future, I made a twenty-year plan, hoping to ensure that the rug would never be pulled out from under me again. I bought a house that would have been paid for the same year my son left on his mission and I no longer had income from Social Security for his support. I decorated and made use of all the rooms in the house, maintaining flexibility to turn the sewing room into a girl’s bedroom and the little office off the master bedroom into a nursery in the event that I remarried, but if I did not, my house payment would be gone at the same time that my income decreased. The basement was also available for future expansion. I followed that plan for about three years before my life veered off in a direction I had not foreseen. Perhaps that is part of why I don’t make long-term set-in-cement plans anymore.
Over the years, my system has evolved. I used to make a weekly to-do list. On one side of the lined piece of paper were all the things I needed and wanted to accomplish that week. On the other side was a heading that said “What I did instead.” I have removable to-do lists that can be moved ahead in the planner until all the items are crossed off. I also write my to-dos on Post-it Notes and stick them to my desk where they are there staring at me, demanding attention. One thing that can give you a feeling of accomplishment is to write your to-do list at the end of the day, a retrospective. List everything you did and then cross it out, and when you die and someone else looks at your planner, you will appear to have been a very together person.
A pocket or two for little notes written on random pieces of paper would be helpful. Receipts and business cards need a home. Tabs are helpful. I like to be able to find the phone numbers of church people all in one place. There are usually pages for writing addresses and phone numbers. Again, just give me a place to write an address and phone number and then give me a few blank lines. I don’t need a slot for a person’s website and e-mail address, because what I may want to write in that space is something completely different. Less is more.
I have another small notebook in which I am attempting to keep all of my user names and passwords for various websites and such. I believe strongly in the need to be organized, but I don’t believe organized has to mean regimented. The things that showed up in my “what I did instead” column were usually things important in a different way.
In the next life, I’m sure there will be room for both types. The planners can become recording angels, flying around recording people misdeeds and good deeds in little celestial Franklin Planners. And hopefully there will be room for a few angels flying by the seat of their robes, guardian angels keeping people from walking in front of busses so they can die on the weekend when they are scheduled.
Despite the rambling nature of this, there is a message in here somewhere. If you are a Winger, pick up the broom instead of the centerpiece for a change. If you are prone to over-scheduling, don’t forget to leave some blank pages in your planner.
Remember, the ducks might not be there tomorrow.
